Key Iranian Official Involved In Peace Talks Reportedly Severely Wounded In Strike

A joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike critically injured Kamal Kharazi, the senior Iranian diplomat reportedly coordinating back-channel negotiations to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Vice President JD Vance and Tehran’s leadership.

Kharazi’s Tehran residence was hit early Thursday, killing his wife and leaving the 81-year-old former foreign minister hospitalized with severe injuries, according to Iranian newspapers Shargh, Etemad and Ham Mihan, as reported by The Telegraph. Kharazi had been working with Pakistani intermediaries to set up a potential sit-down between Iranian officials and Vance, the outlet reported.

The strike landed just as that diplomatic channel appeared to be gaining traction. Vance had been in contact with intermediaries connected to Pakistan’s government about the conflict as recently as Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing a source briefed on the issue. At Trump’s direction, the vice president privately indicated that Trump was agreeable to a ceasefire if specific conditions were met, the source told the outlet. He also warned that pressure on Iranian infrastructure would intensify without a deal. (RELATED: DUKE: Trump Suggests He Found Off-Ramp In Iran War — No One Else Is Acting Like It)

The New York Times, citing officials, reported that Kharazi was helping coordinate a possible meeting between Vance and Iranian authorities. Iranian negotiators had conveyed to mediators that the country’s senior leadership had not yet signed off on any in-person talks, The Telegraph reported.

🔴 Kamal Kharazi, the former Iranian foreign minister, was critically injured after a joint strike targeted his home in Tehran on Thursday

🔗: https://t.co/feJzSJPO0R pic.twitter.com/L9Fdq9TLMu

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) April 2, 2026

Trump delivered a national address that same evening declaring that U.S. military objectives were “nearing completion.” He also threatened to devastate Iran’s power grid if Tehran refused a deal. It remains unclear whether Kharazi was the intended target, but the reported strike on a key diplomatic figure complicates the administration’s claim that a deal is within reach.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry pushed back forcefully against Trump’s address.

Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said  Tehran “will not tolerate this vicious cycle of war, negotiations, ceasefire, and then repeating the same pattern.”

Kharazi himself appeared to foreshadow this exact scenario weeks earlier.

“While we were engaged in negotiations, they struck us,” he told CNN from Tehran.